Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2011
Edit Blog Post
This week we switched teams. I am now on 8A with the older kids and Katie is on 8B with the babies. I have enjoyed hanging out with the kids who are old enough to have a conversation with and learning a bit about their culture and languages. The very sick child with HIV that Katie admitted last week is still doing well, he is scheduled for a head CT next week. Katie has twins on her ward named Queen Elizabeth One and Two (NICU grads anyone!) To add to the royal party there is also a boy named Prins.
Today a small boy with a cardiac defect and the cutest little voice was following me around on rounds. When I picked him up he wanted to play with my stethescope and I helped him listen to his heart which he thought was amazing. This started a bit of a ruckus in the unit because then all of the kids wanted to listen to their hearts. I got them to take turns and it was really cute to see them all excited. Then the little boy turned his attention to my retractable name tag for the next 30 minutes. I
took pictures of the kids and showed them on the viewfinder and they thought it was so funny.
On Monday afternoon the clinic was crazy! Every Monday a bus from the northern reions brings patients who are referred to us. there is no such thing as a direct admission here so anyone who needs to be admitted to the hospital has to come through the clinic or casualty (the ED) Unfortunately very few of the mothers from this region speak English so that was an added challenge. The sisters were so busy that we had to recruit one of the fathers to help us translate fora few patients. I had to admit a patient with suspected petit mal seizures just so she can see the neurologist and get an EEG. We had a few admissions for respiratory distress so at least we felt comfortable with what to do for those kids. We had quite a few children come with illegible or nonsensical referral forms so trying to figure why the kids were here was interesting.
Our new favorite word here from taking histories is paining. As in, "my head has been paining me for 3 days" or "when
I lay down I am having paining in my chest. " For some reason it just tickles us to hear people describe things this way. Also, for some reason we cannot seem to figure out a way to ask people how many times a day the baby is urinating. We have tried saying peeing, pee peeing, passing urine, passing water, voiding, making wet nappies (the word for diaper here) and the mothers just give us blank stares. We think that monitoring urine output isn't something that is emphasized to mtoehrs here like it is in the US so they just don't take note.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0579s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Rich Gair
non-member comment
Wow again
I am so enjoying your blog. The work that you guys are doing is so wonderful I struggle to find the adequate words to praise you. I read this and realize how lucky we have it here with the medical care we can provide. I just became a grandpa for the first time in June so I look at babies now with more frequency and think of my new grandson who is in New Jersey. I held him two weeks ago and did not want to give him back to my daughter. Keep up the work and the blog Lauren, the world needs more Lauren Moreas.